Julie Obear and her friend Barry King have completed a 250-day continuous hike of the American Discovery Trail, which runs across the entire middle of the United States from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.

Suzanne Snell / Wicked Local Beverly

Julie Obear and her friend Barry King have completed a 250-day continuous hike of the American Discovery Trail, which runs across the entire middle of the United States from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.

The pair, who over the last seven years has completed three other intense hikes together, has called their most recent journey the “Lighthouse to Lighthouse Tour.”

It began this past February 1 at the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse in Delaware and finished October 7 at the Point Reyes Lighthouse in California after a 4,767.95-mile hike from coast to coast.

Obear, 39, who is originally from Beverly, and King, 49, detailed their journey online daily with pictures and entries on trailjournals.com and went by their monikers Boston (Obear) and Cubby (King).

Picking a start date is crucial, Obear said of the planning process.

“For this trip you want to start as early as you can to beat the snow before it comes during this time of year,” Obear said. “You also don’t want to start too late and hit the snow in Colorado.”

Obear said the mild winter was in their favor but the heat in Utah and Nevada was very difficult to hike in.

To beat the heat while hiking, Obear and King would trek at night and try to sleep during the day.

“It was so hot during the day,” Obear said. “It was hard to sleep. Nevada cooled off a bit for us.”

Water can be scarce on the trail and the American Discovery Trail Society strongly recommends hikers bury water jugs that are sealed along the trail, Obear said.

“Through Utah and Nevada the trail goes through no natural water sources for hundreds of miles,” Obear said. “It is not uncommon for through-hikers to bury water.”

In a journal entry dated Monday, July 16, Obear and King took a moment to tell readers and fellow hikers about their water caches. For two weeks last year they drove to Colorado, Utah and Nevada to cache water for their upcoming journey.

“We tried to bury water every 15 miles,” Obear said. “We were careful to bury the water in locations that were not obvious, and where only we would be able to locate them.”

In total Obear and King buried 51 containers each holding three gallons of water.

Obear said the scariest part of the trip was when they came upon water they had buried last September and found it completely depleted.

The first eight caches they came across were just as the left them. There had been no tampering, animal tracks or dig marks.

However as they continued their trek, the duo noticed the containers of water were deteriorating more and more. “When we came to a necessary cache, we were crossing our fingers that it was okay. It had zero water left,” said Obear.

When fear hit of reaching more empty caches, Obear and King decided to take a break and reassess their water situation for the reminder of the desert trek.

“We rented a car and drove 723 miles one night just to check all the remaining bottles,” Obear said.

Many of those bottles were empty or the water level had depleted significantly. The two figured out it was the seaming on the bottom of the bottles that caused a slow leak in them. The water was replaced and buried back into the ground.

The hardest part of the trip for both of them was hiking through the heat and in remote areas where a road of house couldn’t be seen.

“In the desert you can’t see a person for miles and there isn’t a lick of shade,” Obear said.

Obear commented on the generosity and hospitality of the people they met.

In total Obear and King spent 72 nights in strangers’ homes.

“It totally restores your faith in humanity,” Obear said. “People would offer things and we wouldn’t have to ask.”

The official trail includes a ferry ride from San Francisco to Oakland, Calif. A man commuting to work by way of the ferry surprised Obear and King with two tickets after they talked for a bit and offered to buy them a snack at the snack bar.

“The generosity of people, even in big busy cities, is comforting and amazing,” Obear said.

For Obear and King, this hike marks the final in what long-distance hikers call the “Grand Slam,” which consists of three other hikes — Appalachian Trail, Continental Divide Trail and Pacific Crest Trail — which the woman have completed together since 2005.

The ADT stands out among the three, Obear said, because it is so much longer.

“In your head you are ready to be done at about 2,500 miles,” Obear said, noting that’s about the half way mark for the ADT.

The hike they like the most was the Continental Divide — a 3,100-mile hike between Mexico and Canada on the Rocky Mountain Range.

In 2008 they embarked on that trip and said the trails are still not completely developed yet.

“You really have to navigate it,” Obear said. “If you don’t know how to read a map or a compass, you shouldn’t be out there.”

It is their favorite because of the level of difficulty and the beautiful scenery, Obear said.

Before heading back to Nebraska, Obear and King will spend a few days in California relaxing.

To read their journal entries and look at photos, visit trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?trailname=12984.